a week in thoughts

random ramblings from my brain ft. my favorite place to cry in nyc

sometimes my brain feels like cartoon Lizzie McGuire and I am not sure if this is a positive or negative thing (probably positive, I think)

Monday

I am sitting in a cafe called “Hungry Llama” in the heart of West Village. I am happy to be here on a Monday morning, even though I feel drowsy from the Zyrtec I took late last night when I started reading from a dusty Agatha Christie book that has been sitting on my shelf for years and it made me have a sneezing attack. Sometimes I marvel at how strong and sensitive the human body is, but sometimes it just annoys me. Most of the people sitting next to me are networking with each other or taking business meetings. I feel like a fish out of water right now. I don’t want to network; I want to eat my breakfast burrito. I know that is maybe what I get for being at a cafe in Manhattan on a Monday morning but lately I just wish everyone would slow down and take a second to truly enjoy the $8 coffees they ordered.

For some reason a man I went on a date with over a year ago randomly pops into my head and I hope he is doing well. He was tall and kind and would walk around the streets of New York City with a dead cell phone in his pocket, with no sense of stress or urgency whatsoever. He did not know how to get back to Penn Station from the coffee shop we were in, but he didn’t care. He had no idea how frequently the trains to Poughkeepsie ran at this time of day, but he did not care about that, either. I offered to look up the train schedule on my phone and he said it was okay. That the train would come eventually. I knew he was right, but his lax attitude freaked me out at the time. Now, I respectfully still would not want to date him but I would want to pick his brain a little bit and ask him a few questions about how he manages to truly not give a fuck about things most people would freak out about.

I sit in a “virtual waiting room” for Noah Kahan tickets and I don’t understand why something that should be as fun as buying concert tickets has become a whole production and a very meticulous system that more often than not leaves you feeling frustrated and broke. There are 2 minutes left in this virtual room before the sale starts and I roll up my sleeves and dig for my wallet and pray that the tickets are less than $500. The page refreshes and I am placed 77,843rd in the virtual waiting room line. I try to remain optimistic and hope that there will be tickets left once it is finally my turn.

There were not any tickets left. I am going to leave “Hungry Llama” and go home.

Tuesday

I woke up earlier than usual today but I don’t feel good about it; I feel lethargic and like I need to wash my hair. I don’t know why I didn’t wash it yesterday. One thing I have learned by now is that I will always feel better when I wash my hair. I have learned this but I still choose to never listen to myself for some reason.

I went to a show at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn last night and I will feel endlessly grateful that I am someone who appreciates the power of live music. That is not something you can explain or teach to someone; you either feel it or you don’t. I am glad I feel it. As someone who often feels like she feels everything too much and too deeply, on the list of all the things I feel that I wish I didn’t, being so deeply impacted by music will never be on that list.

I am in a cafe in Chelsea and I watch as groups of teenage girls come and go – never alone but never in a group larger than 3. They all are wearing the exact same jeans in different color washes and I can also tell they are all wearing the same lip gloss. I wish I was them but I also don’t. It is much more comfortable up here closer to thirty where I feel like I can wear whatever pair of jeans I want, but I do yearn for the very specific sense of feeling invincible I remember having at 16. Maybe at 17, too. They all order the same iced matchas and I feel an almost maternal instinct over them in a way I never have felt towards anyone before.

I want to tell them they should just get ahead of the curve and delete Snapchat off their phone right now. Instagram too, if they are feeling brave enough. I want to tell them that unfortunately, yes, your message being left on “Delivered” all day does mean he does not like you that much. I want to tell them that the cliches are unfortunately as true as they say. You will know if someone likes you; you most certainly will not have to question it. I want them to think they can trust me because my jeans are different than theirs but still look cool to them, or because I am sitting across from them holding the same matcha as they are. I want them to know that things can change and still be good. They all continue to come and go, and of course I say nothing, but I hope the small smile I offer them when we make eye contact while sipping our iced matchas will suffice. I choose to believe it does.

Wednesday

Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday and it is my favorite day of the year. I don’t understand how it can be just another Thursday and date on the calendar to everyone else around me. I finally washed my hair this morning and I feel better, I think. At least a little bit. Sometimes it is hard to tell. I don’t know how to judge it.

I am on the queue for Noah Kahan tickets again. I hope it goes better this time, but we’ll see.

Recently I have been thinking about what would happen if I decided to never wear makeup again. I don’t think I would ever actually do that because the reality is that I love the feeling of applying my sparkly eyeshadow and reapplying my lip gloss, but sometimes I think about how it would probably be a much simpler life to live. I also find myself thinking about what would happen if we all just never looked in a mirror again. I often look at a picture of myself and feel content with how I look in the photograph, but I found myself picking myself apart in the mirror that same night the picture was taken. My therapist tells me I judge myself too harshly. I have always known that about myself, but I am currently in a weird cycle of judging myself for judging myself. I am still learning how to pump the brakes on it.

This time I am only 1,507th in the virtual queue for Noah tickets and allow myself to feel a little hopeful. By the time it is my turn, there are no seats left again.

Thursday

I did my hair and put on makeup in preparation for my annual gynecologist appointment. For some reason I inherently know looking better will make me feel better, and feeling better will make me feel more confident and less nervous about the dozens of questions I need to ask my doctor about why being on my period makes me feel like I am about to die every single month. I have normalized the feeling of impending doom each month for far too long. It is time to ask questions.

I sit on my couch wearing my favorite headband from Brandy Melville and my Clinique Black Honey Almost Lipstick and I wait for the time to pass. An hour before the appointment, my gynecologist needs to reschedule, which is fine; it happens. But now I have an extra few weeks to wonder what is wrong with my body. I try to recenter my thoughts and remind myself that everything can and will be figured out. The afternoon goes by slowly because now I have unexpected time to kill. I am not used to having extra time and I don’t know what to do.

Friday

I am on an early train back to Penn Station. There was a period of my life where I used to joke that if there was a competition, I would win the award for “Girl Who Has Cried The Most In Penn Station” by a landslide. That was years ago, but today I still think I would be a candidate in at least the semifinal round. I have always felt so anonymous in Penn Station, in both a powerful and lonely way. Of all the places to cry in New York, Penn Station is a decent option. Last week my friend and I joked about what our “crash pads” are in the city — places we can truly just crash and cry, maybe rest and hydrate if we need to. Penn Station, specifically the Raising Canes, instantly came to mind for me. The music is obnoxiously loud and the lights are annoyingly fluorescent, but I can sit and be the worst version of myself there while I eat my Texas Toast. It’s terrible but it’s comforting. Other places on my list included a corner of the Union Square Barnes & Noble and one specific bench near Christopher Street.

The weather forecast predicts 41 degrees and sunny today and thank God for that. It will be a good day.

Saturday

I sleep in until 11:26 A.M. and I don’t feel guilty about it, for once. I am not worried about wasting the day. I wish I never worried about feeling like I am wasting the day. I usually spend too much time in bed thinking about all the things I could be doing instead, but I am content to just be here for now. For once I am not thinking about much else and I feel grateful for such a rare moment of quiet in my brain. I am going to take advantage of this feeling and not do much today. I want to try to remind myself that quiet and restful days are just as meaningful.

Sunday

I have a hard time getting out of bed this morning and I try not to think too hard about it because maybe getting out of bed is something that is supposed to be hard on a Sunday. I really want to go on a run but I deem it too cold even before I even check the weather. I am so tired of making excuses for myself, but I still do not go on a run.

Instead I force myself to roll out of bed and make my bed so I feel slightly less tempted to climb back into it. I am playing the same song on repeat, a song by an indie artist that is having its viral moment on TikTok I’m thinking about how many talented people there are in the world. I feel a twinge of sadness knowing that I will never get to discover them all.

I feel the opposite of how I felt yesterday. I am worried the day is going to pass me by too quickly. My brain feels very stop and go, and I never know if I should stop or go.

I want to stop for now.

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Until next time!

XO, Daelyn <3